Aircraft include landing gear in which a main structural part, referred to as a “strut”, is generally pivotally mounted to the aircraft to enable the landing gear to be retracted into a housing within the aircraft after takeoff. The strut comprises a tube having a rod slidably mounted therein, which rod carries the wheel(s) at its bottom end. The strut also includes structural elements such as arms or webs for Connecting the tube to the aircraft. In particular, certain struts include side arms that extend on either side of the tube and that are terminated by spools for receiving pins for hinging the strut to the aircraft.
A strut of that type is generally made of metal, e.g. of aluminum or of steel, in particular as a casting or as a forging. It is then easy to provide connection shapes between the tube and the arms in order to ensure that the connections between these elements are mechanically strong.
It is also known to make tubes out of composite material by filamentary winding of fibers onto a mandrel. That method of fabrication is easily industrializable and makes it possible to control the orientation and the distribution of the fibers so as to make a tube that is light in weight while also being mechanically strong.
The invention seeks to provide a method of fitting said tube with structural elements, e.g. lateral arms or beams for transmitting forces.
Proposals have been made to use reinforcing parts that are adhesively bonded, being fitted astride the structural element and the tube. However that type of connection is not satisfactory. The fibers of the structural element terminate in register with the tube and no continuity is provided. In order to make that connection mechanically strong, it is necessary to use reinforcing parts that are thick and of large area. The assembly then becomes heavier and more difficult to make, and the connection becomes bulkier.